CT COVID-19 Positivity Rate Jumps To Highest Level In 13 Weeks

CONNECTICUT — The daily coronavirus positivity rate in Connecticut has jumped to its highest level in 13 weeks, according to data released Tuesday afternoon by the state Department of Public Health.

The current rate is 4.64 percent, the highest daily COVID-19 infection level reported by DPH since Aug. 31, when the number spiked at 4.65 percent.

Gov. Ned Lamont has said that the coronavirus positivity rate, along with the current number of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in Connecticut, are the key metrics health officials monitor to determine the status of their battle against the pandemic. On Monday, the 7-day coronavirus average was the highest it's been in Connecticut since early September.

The coronavirus positivity rate is a function of newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and the number of tests taken in the past 24 hours. DPH confirmed 754 cases overnight, out of 16,255 tests taken, which yielded the 4.64 percent rate. The rate reported Tuesday is 1.11 percent over Monday's score.

Connecticut Department of Public Health commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani told reporters Monday that she expected the number of COVID-19 cases in states even as highly vaccinated as Connecticut to grow as "respiratory viruses circulate more in the winter." COVID-19 cases have risen sharply in the Northeast over the past six weeks.

The current escalation is also an indicator that residents' coronavirus immunity may be waning, especially among the older population, according to Juthani, who expressed hope that the current booster push would keep the numbers manageable through the winter.

Unvaccinated people were about five times more likely to test positive for the COVID-19 than the vaccinated in the week starting Sept. 26, down from about 15 times more likely in May, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, updated Monday.

Hospitalizations rose 14 beds overnight. Two hundred eighty-two patients are currently hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19; of those 73 (25.9 percent) are fully vaccinated.

Most of those hospitalized (97) are in New Haven County.

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